Captain's Quarters -

Let me know what you think.
Seems all right.

No difference noted from this side of the screen! As long as you don't run a stealth program to copy what's on my clipboard (nothing) --- things look normal!!

Seems to be ok from here. Thanks for tinkering.

I don't see any difference, either. (Which is the point, I guess, eh?)

And to think, just a couple of decades ago we were squinting at tiny black screens with green letters.

Oh no, not me. I had YELLOW letters. Easier on the eyes.

I like TypeKey, I have no problems with it... except for with Captain's Quarters. It takes maybe four extra steps to sign in, after the first attempt, the failure of the first attempt, the redirect, the second attempt...

I really love the idea of being able to avoid that. However, I wonder if now we won't have problems with folks fighting over who gets to sign in under what name, and if that will cause confusion...?

Time will tell. Thanks for always trying new stuff, Cap'n!

Well if you can get away from typekey that would be nice. I consider typekey user hateful at best and *$&#@ at worst:)

I like your blog very much, but seldom visit because when I'm on your site, I can't get out without going all the way to may screen saver. Can you fix this? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Thanks,
jb

Much better! Saves several steps. TypeKey has always been a problem for me, and this new process eliminates a lot of grief.

Hope you keep it, Captain!

Well, considering that it usually takes me 3-4 tries to actually get logged into typekey via your site (and only yours, btw), it's probably a good thing. The normal behavior is that I sign in with typekey, and it tells me that I have to share my email with the site. I do so, and it throws an error.

usually within a few tries it works. But sometimes I just give up and don't post comments.

This comment page loaded a tad faster. I have DSL so it is pretty fast but not as fast as broadband (when that worked, I fired comcast when they could not keep mu connection running and their repair people never showed up).

How will you assure that someone doesn't do identity theft without typekey?

Well, I prefer it this way, because I'd rather not have to register to comment.

Keep up the good work, Captain Ed.

Typekey sucks, to put it bluntly. Not only is their signon process unreliable (I have to login twice before I can post a comment) but the performance is really bad. Thanks for addressing this.

For comment spam you should look into Akismet, as they have a movable type version available now.

In the long run I think you might consider converting to Wordpress, as painful as that may sound.

I'm apparently still signed in via TypeKey and I left a comment on the post above this one a few minutes ago successfully. Just heard from "Fight4TheRight" via email that he's tried to leave two comments that aren't showing up yet. He doesn't strike me as someone you'd ban deliberately so I'd say there must stil be some kinks in the system.

Well, I guess I got in, ok.

I haven't been in before this, today, so I'm not too sure, yet.

Yeesssssssssss!!!!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ed!

I haven't been able to comment for weeks thanks to *something* out of whack with typekey.

Thanks Bill.
I couldn't, for some reason, sign into TypeKey before and when I tried to comment without it, my comments didn't post. I got into TypeKey just now so all seems to be okay.

The problem with comments which I perceived was the ads on the right taking longer to load - if I scroll down through comments before they are done, the page returns to the top when they finish, which was annoying.

This time the ads seems to load more quickly. If that's a product of this tinkering, then I say, "Thanks!"

Apparently I am still signed into TypeKey, so no problem commenting (if you can read this, that is).

I could never get signed in before this change. We'll see if this works.

Tap, tap...

This thing live?

Never could get registered using typekey, gave up a long time ago.

Bush, Hitler, Chimp, Halliburton, ok my test is completed

I'm still doing some testing -- a lot of your comments now have to get rescued from the junk file. I'm looking for other options ...

I visit your site every day and enjoy it very much.
I would like to comment, but your typekey Id is way more hassle than my poor opinions are worth.

I agree with the assessments of Typekey - it's never worked correctly for me.

Another issue I have from time to time - and it seems only to happen on this site, after all the ads load, when I scroll or page down, the screen doesn't redraw correctly, only the top two or three lines actually scroll, while the rest of the page stays on the same image. I can click to different tabs , and they come to the front, but the image on the screen in the window stays on Captain's Quarters. The only fix is to quit the browser and reload the page. Using a Mac with Firefox.

It seems to only happen with this page, and it seems like it could be some ad graphic that is causing the problem.

Weird, intermittent problem - just wondering if anyone else has had the same experience.

Checking the comments routine again after a scripting change ...

TypeKey has irritating problems. I have a TypeKey identity, but signing in is always an iterative process. After passing through all the steps save the last one, it rejects the sign-in:
"Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:

The sign-in validation failed. "

So? It then offers another sign-in opportunity. Cycling through this one, the sign-in succeeds and my deathless prose is plastered on the screen to inflict pain and suffering on my fellow participants.

Maybe this is the TypeKey management forcing us through a time-consuming process, to give more time for reflection of our deathless prose and never-before-thought-of opinions.

While I'ver never had to go through more than a single repeat of the typekey login, that does get annoying.

I am not as annoyed with typekey as some folks seem to be, and it's nice to have some sort of central repository where a single account lets you comment on multiple blogs.Certainly the requirement to register a different username and password for every blog you'd like to comment on is discouraging.

Assuming this gets posted correctly, the new method would seem to work for me. :)

Well, that was interesting!

I just posted an entry on another thread and got an "Internal Server Error" and then when I back-paged and tried it again I got rejected by the time limit. Then I closed my browser and reopened it to log on again and found my original post went through. I haven't had this much fun since the hogs ate grandma!

As far as TypeKey is concerned, I've gotten accustomed to its peculiar charms and I can live with it. All I really need is predictability in a computer or its software. I can live with a glitch as long as it stay's constant and reliable. I get really steamed when it goes intermittant or starts evolving into more exciting or random symptoms.

So do whatever you want with TypeKey Skipper, and I'll find a way to work with it. Good Luck!

Wow, this is just way cool! An "Internal Server Error" after each and every post is just too much fun to believe! I haven't enjoyed myself with all my clothes on like this in a long long time! Yippee!

I lurk here daily, but don't like to register to comment. If this works I may comment here occaisionally.

I haven't had any problems with TypeKey and I like the fact I only have to sign in about once a month and it's good here and at Big Lizards and two or three other sites I visit less frequently. Maybe you could keep TypeKey as an option but provide an alternative?

Ed,

I thoroughly enjoyed the anti-spam device you've incorporated to regulate posting:

Q: Who is the current President [of the US]? (Both names)

That right there will screen out upwards of 30% of the liberal trolls who cannot, even under threat of waterboarding, speak, much less type, the name which must not be mentioned.

Bravo, you dastardly man.

Works for me!!